You really have no choice but to not act tough—William Clark knows his own hardships. From birth until now, the closest he’s ever been to that strange world was just a moment ago.

If there’s anything different about William Clark now, it’s the shop system in his mind, the tree in his palm, the fire in his heart, and the dim star map in his chest.

If you dig deeper, you could also count his body, which has consumed the cleansing fruit.

But aside from these, he truly has no combat ability at all. All these things sound pretty impressive when you list them out, but if it really came down to a fight, he’d be the first to go down in seconds.

The idea of confidently turning the tables just doesn’t exist for William Clark—running away when you can’t win is the only sensible thing. Who knows what happened to that person who was taken away backstage at the acrobatics show this afternoon? William Clark definitely doesn’t want to end up like that.

He’s not some hero, nor a hot-blooded teenager with superhero dreams. He’s just a senior high school student, already lying at the mouth of the well, wanting to take a look at the wider world outside.

William Clark still needs to study the secrets within his own body, and he has to take care of Little Clark until she’s able to stand on her own—just like a big brother watching his little sister grow up. The whole “raising a loli” thing, when you think about it, is actually kind of exciting.

Although Little Clark never admits they’re siblings, even though she uses the surname 吕 when naming herself.

So William Clark can’t afford for anything to happen to him tonight—he still has so much to do.

William Clark slowly climbed down from the roof with his bamboo basket, then looked at the two people confronting him and tilted his head.

The other side looked a bit confused—what does tilting your head mean?

William Clark felt a bit helpless. Come on, guys, just leave already. You standing here is making me nervous… He pointed in the direction they were originally going, meaning, “Go ahead, I’ll get out of your way.”

At this moment, William Clark was ready to bolt at any time. Who knows what kind of people these are?

Too many strange things have happened tonight—William Clark feels like he can’t keep up.

First, a fire lit up the sky over Luo City, and then he ran into the black trench coat he’d seen that afternoon.

But even though William Clark stepped aside, the problem was that the other party didn’t seem ready to let things go. They cautiously took a few steps toward William Clark, then nimbly leapt across two rooftops in a row.

In the black night, the moonlight turned the snow on the rooftops silver. Stepping on the snow made a crunching sound, and the footprints left behind were black, looking extremely out of place.

Come to think of it, could this person have something to do with the fire? Now that William Clark recalls how the other person looked just now, it really did seem like they were running for their life!

“Who are you?” One person stood on the rooftop, looking down at William Clark from above, the black robe-like garment flapping loudly in the biting wind.

“I live here. Who are you?”

The two on the roof exchanged glances. “What are you doing on the roof in the middle of the night?”

“It’s snowing… collecting dried radishes…” William Clark raised the bamboo basket in his hand, brushed the snow off the top, and sure enough, revealed the dried radishes inside…

The two on the roof looked at each other in disbelief. He really came up here to collect dried radishes?! The snow has already stopped and he only now remembers to collect his stuff—could he be an idiot?!

“Go home. It’s not safe here,” one of them said from the rooftop.

William Clark thought to himself, it’s only unsafe because you guys are here, okay? He gave an “oh,” turned around, took out his key, and went back inside.

It wasn’t until he took out his key and opened the door that he suddenly felt the pressure from above lift all at once.

Only at this point did the other party finally believe he wasn’t suspicious.

After closing the door, William Clark let out a quiet breath. This world really has become abnormal.

He’d been worried before—what if everything happening to him could be sensed by others? What would he do then?

He had this concern because, when the fire broke out, he could vaguely sense something unusual in that direction.

It wasn’t intuition, but a feeling—a real, tangible sensation.

At this moment, the white flame in his heart was flickering nonstop, and the star map was slowly rotating along some mysterious trajectory. If someone could sense it, he probably wouldn’t be able to escape being taken away.

But for now, it seemed the other party didn’t have that ability. Or maybe, they just couldn’t sense what was happening to him?

During these two encounters, William Clark realized that although the other party acted strangely, they didn’t seem like the type to kill indiscriminately. At least throughout the whole process, they hadn’t used any violence against him.

William Clark leaned on the sofa, deep in thought. What exactly is that world like?

Meanwhile, the two people running off into the distance were speaking in low voices: “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with him?”

“No fluctuations at all. Just an ordinary person.”

“That’s good.”

……

“William Clark, who were you talking to outside just now?” Little Clark came out of her room, dragging her slippers.